


if there is no love in the world

by iinfiniteskies



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Enemies to Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Homesickness, M/M, Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-06 07:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11031066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iinfiniteskies/pseuds/iinfiniteskies
Summary: Lance felt his mouth open, heard words come out without fully thinking about them. “I think I’m dying.”"That's okay."





	1. we will make a new world,

The castle was quiet. Much too quiet. At night all systems shut down, and they were left to float among the stars until ten hours later, where no matter where you were in your sleep schedule the power would flood back on and you would be up.

But the fact still remained that at night it was way too quiet.

Lance would lie awake, staring up at his ceiling til his eyes ran bloodshot and hurt to close, waiting for a noise. Anything. But the castle was quiet and the systems were down and there was no tv noise from the living room.

Maybe if he closed his eyes he could pretend to hear the sounds of his dad’s radio static from the kitchen, or his brother’s soft breathing in the bed across the room. Maybe if he squeezed his eyes so tight he saw stars they would turn into the glowing ones he taped on to his ceiling when he was nine.

But the castle was silent and the only stars were millions of miles away.

So Lance didn’t sleep. He couldn’t allow his eyes to close. He paced in his room (his silent room), waiting for the rumble of the power turning on to prompt him into the kitchen to face another day of green goo and crime-fighting across the galaxies.

And he couldn’t leave his room, because leaving his room heightened his chances of running into Keith. 

Keith Kogane, nocturnal purple-eyed delinquent supreme, stalking around the castle halls at all hours of shut-down, consistently preventing Lance from leaving his prison cell of a room.

Because if he and Keith couldn’t get along with their whole team prompting them to in the heat of battle, they certainly wouldn’t be able to get along while walking alone together under the vaulted, empty ceilings of the castle. Not when the only sounds would be their echoed breathing and quiet steps.

But tonight wasn’t like the other nights.

Tonight marked one year, or a year as well as Lance could figure it, since they had left Earth. A fact that didn’t seem to bother the rest of them as much as it bothered him, but maybe they hid it behind bruised under-eyes and bony hands like Lance tried to, too.

But he couldn’t, because how many birthdays had he missed? How many big moments? Did Abby know how to read yet? Did Daniel get the toy truck he wanted for his birthday? Lance had always meant to call him to wish him a happy birthday, but he guessed it was a little too late now.

So it had been one year. And Lance was sick to death of his room. So he would go to the viewing dock.

The viewing dock was something he was pretty sure only he knew about. Found on some lazy-day expedition without Hunk or Pidge, up in the upper levels of the castle, where his boots left footprints around him and send clouds of dust flying up into the air.

It was a metal platform with one door leading in and out, the rest completely glass. Lance supposed it had been a lookout area at some point, but now it was just for him to sit at and stare out of.

And now Lance went to the dock.

He crept silently through the halls, feeling especially small under the encroaching darkness of the tall ceilings. Stepping into the glassed-in dock and closing the door, he took a deep breath and relaxed as much as he could.

He walked to the center of the room with a specific destination in mind. If he sat in the perfect position and stared out, the metal support beams holding the glass would be just out of sight, and the cold metal floor would be only known to his legs. Then he could pretend he was five again, sitting on the roof of his house and staring up at the sky.

The only difference being that back then he wanted to be up there, flying around, and now he would give anything to be back on that roof right now.

So Lance sat down in his spot, wrapping his arms around his knees and closing his eyes. Okay. He let the silence stretch and fold around him, smothering him like a too-warm blanket after an ice-cold swim. This silence was okay. He was okay. 

He definitely did not feel like he was falling apart at the seams, held together with breaking thread and dusty dreams. He definitely didn’t feel as though he was separate from his body, floating away into the universe. 

Keith was sitting next to him, Lance vaguely recognized. When that had happened, he didn’t know, but he felt so far away from everything he couldn’t summon the mental energy to wonder about it.

Keith was talking to him, Lance became aware of. But his brain was somewhere up in the stars he was staring at and absolutely nothing could bring him back.

Keith’s face was very close to his. Lance’s eyes focused on the purple-blue eyes in front of his own brown ones. Keith was talking again. There was a little crease in between his eyebrows. His eyebrows were way too perfect to be allowed. Lance bet that the boy had never even seen a tweezer before in his life. So unfair.

Wait.

Lance refocused on Keith’s wide eyes in front of him. His own eyes widened and he sprang back.

“Dude, what the _hell?_ ” Lance blinked rapidly at Keith’s bemused and slightly annoyed face. “What are you doing so close to my -” he gestured vaguely at his face, “- huh?”

Keith squinted at him. “Are you actually serious?”

“What? What are you on about?” Lance ran a nervous hand through his hair. How had he not noticed how pretty Keith’s eyes were? Definitely nicer than any galaxy he had ever seen - and he’d seen a lot of galaxies in his time as a paladin. Lance let out a hysterical laugh. What was _happening_ to him?

“Uh, I have no fucking clue.” Now Keith looked even more confused.

Lance felt the tips of his ears turning red. How much of that had he said out loud?

“Lance, are you okay?” Keith had stepped closer to him, which was definitely not allowed. Now his eyes were in even sharper focus, along with his perfect eyebrows and cheekbones and _Jesus Christ_ what was happening - it felt like his whole world was crashing around him.

“Um.” 

The same heavy blanket of silence pushed heavily on Lance again, dragging him down to the cold metal floor. Was this what dying felt like? A slow feeling of just drifting away?

“Lance! Talk to me.” Keith grabbed his shoulders.

Lance felt his mouth open, heard words come out without fully thinking about them. “I think I’m dying.”

Keith said nothing, still staring directly into Lance’s eyes with his bright purple ones. “Okay.”

“I think I’m dying because … because I can’t feel anything. I sit on my bed or on the floor or walk around and all I can feel is heavy silence. Like there’s nothing in the world but me.”

Keith slowly sat down next to Lance, staring with him out into the spiral stars. “Okay.”

“And,” Lance took a deep breath, “And I do things and interact with people but it feels like it’s all autopilot. Like when you push a few buttons on the plane so you can go take a free breath. But I think my brain went on a break and hasn’t come back.”

The silence filled the room but felt softer somehow. More kind. More like the kind of silence where he and his family would fall asleep together on the couch after watching a movie when his dad would turn off the tv and let them all sink into sleep.

“I just.” Lance felt his voice crack. “I just want to go home.”

To his horror, he felt tears begin to slide down his cheeks. He tried to turn away from Keith, ashamed of crying in front of his biggest rival like a goddamn idiot.

“And I hate being here. I hate going from planet to planet, rescuing them from Zarkon because it all feels so fucking useless. Like there’s no hope in doing this because he’s had tens of thousands of years to do this and we’re just kids. We’re just kids.”

The tears were falling faster now. He wasn’t attempting to hide them anymore.

But despite everything, despite the tears soaking his sleeves and Keith sitting silently next to him, Lance felt good. He felt better than he had in months, like a huge heavy weight had been lifted off his chest and he could finally breathe freely.

And he felt exhausted. That at any moment he would drop off into the heaviest sleep he’d ever had. And Keith was still sitting next to him.

So Lance let his head nod down, let himself slump against Keith. Let his tears run into his red jacket and soak through. Let himself drift away into a deep, dreamless sleep.

And it was the best he’d had in ages.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from a Jonathan Safran Foer novel, everything is illuminated, which i highly recommend.   
> comments and kudos much appreciated, love u babes.  
> xo


	2. and we will give it walls,

Keith exhaled slowly, releasing his grip on the Red Lion’s controls. He felt Red’s comforting presence in the back of his mind attempting to calm him down, but he growled and pushed her out.

He swung himself out of his seat, stalking over to where he could leave. He heard the other lions touching down next to him and Red, but he only had one lion he needed to see.

Storming his way over to Blue, he ignored Shiro’s placating hand on the shoulder of his battered armour. 

“Lance!” Keith did his best to bellow angrily as he approached Lance’s lion.

“Hey, mullet.” Lance’s easy grin slid off his face as he took in Keith’s scowling face.

“You absolute idiot!” Keith was definitely not going to focus on the way Lance’s face got all closed up, like Keith’s comment had sent him somewhere deep inside himself to avoid his wrath. “If it wasn’t for your stupid posturing, we might have actually won that battle instead of being sent running back to the castle with our tails between our legs.”

Lance’s face twisted. “Yeah, well if you’d waited instead of rushing in like a mad dog, I wouldn’t have had to buy time for Pidge and Hunk to finish with the security system!”

“You gave them time to gather their defenses against us!”

“I wouldn’t have had to if you hadn’t been so impulsive!”

Keith opened his mouth to respond, stopped by Shiro’s stronger grip on both of their shoulders. He turned to face him, brows furrowed. He paused, faced by how exhausted Shiro looked. There was a line between his eyebrows that hadn’t been there before, and there were dark purple shadows under his eyes that made him look as though he had been punched.

“Keith. Lance.” Shiro turned to address both of them as he said their names. “This has to stop.”

The two offending paladins exchanged looks, reaching what Keith assumed to an agreement to cool off, at least until Shiro had left.

Lance flicked his eyes back to Shiro. “But Shiro-” He began to protest. Keith’s eyes widened. That was definitely not the agreement they had made. He swiftly kicked out his foot and hit Lance’s leg, who looked back at Keith indignantly, a slight red flush blooming on his cheeks.

Keith took this as an opportunity to loop his arm around Lance’s and drag him away; whether it was in anger or to give Shiro a break, he didn’t quite know.

“Hey - Keith!” Lance protested as he was led away. “What are you doing?”

“Shiro doesn’t deserve to listen to our bickering.” Keith responded through gritted teeth, leading Lance around several corners.

“You think it’s fun for me, either?” Lance complained, still allowing himself to be paraded around the castle to god-knows-where.

Keith paused, turning back to look at Lance. “What?”

“You know,” Lance extracted his arm from Keith’s grip, “the constant fighting, the back-and-forth, the attempts to become friends but not really getting there -”

“Excuse me?” Keith interrupted. “Attempts to become friends? Since when have you tried to be friends with me? All you ever do is shut me out!”

Lance gaped, mouth opening and closing in a way that was not unlike that of a fish. “It’s not like you ever respond when I do! You’ve built up all these walls around yourself - would it kill you to let someone in?”

Keith crossed his arms, turning away. “Look, I have to go.”

“No you damn well don’t - not until you talk to me.” Lance grabbed at Keith’s arm. “Come on, man, I’m an open book. Least you could do is open up to me too.”

Keith peered at Lance’s face, at his twitching attempt at a smile and tired eyes. “It’s not that easy.” He whispered, avoiding his eyes. “I can’t just … I can’t just _open up_.”

Lance looked at him for a long while, trying to read into Keith’s stony expression. He slumped down against the wall and patted the ground next to him.

Keith stood above him, fidgeting nervously. He took in Lance’s exasperated face, his own stubbornness, weighed the odds of the circumstances. Remembered the last time he and Lance’d had this kind of conversation. 

Sighing, he slid down against the slick walls of the castle to join Lance on the ground. 

The two of them must have made a weird picture, Keith thought wryly to himself. Two teen boys sitting alone in the middle of a grand hallway in battered armour, with air so thick with awkwardness it could be cut with a knife.

“Look, I don’t -” Keith took a deep breath, “- I don’t actually hate you.”

Lance snorted.

“I don’t!” Keith protested. “You’ve just always pushed that stupid rivalry on me, and yeah you’re annoying as hell. But I don’t hate you. I never have.”

The silence was deafening.

Lance bounced his leg up in down. “I have been trying to be friends with you, don’t be thick-headed.” He put up a hand against Keith’s open mouth. “I have! You just haven’t been responding. I thought that after …” he trailed off, suddenly very interested in his nail beds. Knowing Lance, he might have been, but Keith wasn’t going to let the sentence hang.

“After what? The night on the viewing dock?”

Lance nodded wordlessly.

“It just seemed like, well, it seemed like you didn’t want to talk about it. So I let it be.”

It helped that Keith hadn’t wanted to talk about it either. Seeing Lance so vulnerable and afraid had struck a strange kind of chord in him, a chord he would have rather left unplayed. He didn’t want to feel sympathy for Lance. He didn’t want to face dealing with emotions, with someone else’s emotional baggage - 

Well. That was kind of a lie. He didn’t want to face Lance, specifically.

Lance fucking McClain, a spot on his figurative glasses since he’s first waltzed into the Garrison. Not a rivalry type of spot, not one that Keith had seen been put there and let be, but a spot that was there no matter how hard he tried to get rid of it. A spot that reminded him of all sorts of feelings he would rather keep below the surface.

Drop out of the Garrison? Not done to get rid of Lance, but a bonus side effect. Hide out in the desert? Blissfully Lance-free. Join Voltron - no Lance! But no. The universe was playing some big cosmic joke on him, laughing at him somewhere out in the stars.

Because Keith’d had a crush on Lance since day one. A crush that was dealt with by building up walls against a budding friendship, by pushing away all possible signs of anything other than animosity and rivalry.

And now.

“Of course I wanted to talk about it!” Lance rolled to sit in front of Keith, legs crossed and hands clasped in his lap. “But you were so far away.”

He stares earnestly at Keith, eyes bright. And Keith can’t stand it. He can’t stand having the object of his affections sitting so close to him - close enough that Keith can smell him (lilac and something citrusy).

Keith looked away, avoiding Lance’s blue eyes. His eyes were so blue. Blue like the ocean on a sunny day, blue like a cloudless sky. Like rain had fallen and pooled in his gaze.

And Keith wanted to talk to him. He so desperately wanted to open up to him. But opening up to Lance would lead to other things, like emotions. It would make the hole in his chest yawn wide, making a chasm that could never be filled. 

“Lance.” He whispered, clenching his hands in and out of fists. “I can’t.”

“Yes you can! I believe in you.” Lance looked like he wanted to reach out and grab Keith’s hands. Or maybe that was just Keith’s imagination acting up again. “Tell me about your family. That’s easy.”

Keith didn’t want to talk about his family. He didn’t want Lance’s sympathy, not Lance with his perfectly large, loving family. 

“I don’t have one.” It felt shameful to admit, which is stupid, because it’s not like it’s his fault. He had no control over his dead dad, his missing mother. He had no control over the foster homes he moved through all his life.

“What? How can you not have a family? Everyone has someone.” Lance had tilted his head, looking genuinely confused.

“I don’t.” His voice is barely a whisper, and Lance had to lean in to hear him.

“‘Course you do. You have us.”

Keith stared at him. Never before that moment had he considered paladins of Voltron his family.

Hearing no objection, Lance continued. “Yeah. Allura’s your mom. Hunk and Pidge are your siblings. Shiro’s your dad. Well, technically he’s your brother but whatever.”

“What are you?” Keith doesn’t want him to to say brother. Anything but brother.

Lance blinked slowly. The flush on his cheekbones is back. “I dunno.”

Keith snorted. Better than nothing.

Again there was silence. But it was more like the silence of the night on the viewing dock; almost amiable. Soft. Keith didn’t want to let it break.

He leaned back against the cold metal of the walls. They felt like barriers between him and the rest of the world, barriered that separated him and Lance from being anything else other than there for each other.

“What do you think about being in Voltron?” This time it’s Lance’s turn to whisper, a soft thing that winds its way around the pair.

Keith let the question sit with them for a while, stewing over how to respond. “It’s better than Earth.” He finally says. Lance looks up in surprise. “Yeah. Don’t look at me like that, it totally is. I don’t have to worry about anything but being a saviour of the universe, which is a hell of a lot better than anything back on the hunk of rock.”

He looked up to meet Lance’s eyes and was startled to see how wide they were. “You don’t miss it at all?”

Keith shifted uncomfortably. “I mean, I guess I do. I miss sunsets and sunrises, and being able to wake up in the morning and not worry if you were going to die that day. Things were a lot less existential back on Earth.”

“I miss everything.” Lance blurted out. “I miss my mama, and my dad. I miss all my siblings, i miss the beach. I miss the rain.”

“I know.” Keith said, not meeting Lance’s eyes. “You keep pictures of them in your room.”

“How do you know that?” Lance looked at him suspiciously.

Keith purposely avoided looking at Lance, taking extreme interest in the cuff of his armour. “After you fell asleep, uh, on me when we were on the viewing dock I carried you back to your room.”

Glancing back at Lance, Keith noticed he was also determinedly not looking at Keith, which suited him just fine. He could feel a blush working its way down from his ears to his cheeks.

Lance had barely moved in Keith’s arms. Despite being so lanky and tall, he wasn’t heavy to carry at all. He curled up in Keith’s arms like a baby, his breath ghosting over Keith’s cheeks. When he had tried to put him on the bed, Lance had gripped tightly onto his shoulders, forcing Keith to lean over him to the point of almost falling over.

He had been able to extricate himself after much squirming, but he didn’t want to think about what might have happened if he’d let himself be pulled into bed with Lance. 

Probably nothing, then Lance would wake up in the morning and flip out at seeing Keith in his bed and they would be back at square one.

So yes, Keith did know about Lance’s pictures of his family.

“Oh.” Lance’s redness had spread from his cheekbones to his whole face, until he looked not unlike a strawberry, his freckles the seeds against the red blush of his skin.

The silence was more awkward this time. Keith worried that he had fucked up by telling Lance about carrying him to bed. It was clearly a sore subject for him.

Lance laughed softly. “Well, now you know way too much about me.”

It was clearly an invitation for Keith to talk more about himself, but he desperately didn’t want to. The walls he had built were too high for one person to break down in a single conversation.

Lance watched him closely. “That’s okay.” He stood up, offering Keith a hand. “We can talk more later.” He smiled hopefully at Keith, who attempted a smile back and took his hand, standing up.

They walked together back down the hall. Keith didn’t realize until Lance had brought him to his room that they had continued to hold hands the whole way there.

**Author's Note:**

> the title is from a johnathan safran foer novel, everything is illuminated, which i highly reccomend.  
> comments and kudos much appreciated, love u babes.  
> xo


End file.
